The Bewilderness

Better to think the worst of the Jews....

Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough - among what peoples are the bad not easily found? - but they take the worst of us as samples of the best; they take the lowest of us as presentations of the highest; and they say, "All Jews are alike"

Mr Riah in "Our Mutual Friend" by Charles Dickens.

The quotation may date from the nineteenth century, but despite the denials of the moderns, we see the same prejudice oozing its way through their sanctimonious outpourings. Those who now argue that they have transcended prejudice through an attachment to multiculturalism and diversity are blinded by their very words. It is not an ascent to a more rational plane but a descent to excusing wrongs on the grounds of difference. Prejudice is embraced by its denial. Anti-semitism returns by default: an age-old hatred reignited because the alternative is a rejection of the mulown ticultural.

For many of the multicultured, it is better to think the worst of the Jews than to question one's beliefs

Sacred

The British Library, the eighties shibboleth on the Euston Road that served as the Tory equivalent of the Millennium Dome and proved rather more useful, has the first in a planned series of exhibitions on interfaith manuscripts and books. With some time in hand, "Sacred" proved an interesting and free exhibition, sponsored by the Duke of Edinburgh and the King of Morocco.

There were some magnificent examples of illuminated manuscripts from the Eastern and Western Churches alongside the non-representational styles of the Jewish and Islamic faiths. The exhibition was designed to show how the influences of these styles could modify the books and munuscripts used for religious practice so that you could view a Coptic book of psalms that looked like the Qu'ran or a Jewish Torah from Paris that would not have looked out of place in a mediaeval monastery. But the similar styles only served to command the power of faith: Copts surviving in Islam, Jews thriving in Christian Europe and Aethiopia maintaining a tradition of Christianity unique to itself (perhaps the most fascinating insight of the displays: could we have an exhibition on Aethiopian history?).

The tension that ran through the exhibition concerned the eexegetical tradition, inspired by philology, that has excavated, deepened and renewed our knowledge on the early Church and the development of the Jewish faith. The contingent construction of the Bible and the Torah was reflected in the descriptions accompanying the text, yet this context was sorely lacking in the approach to the Qu'ran. Early Islamic texts were rough copies of an oral tradition, set out in early Arabic, and without the distinguishing marks that aid pronunciation - presumably all important for Islamic religious practice. One could read between the lines and see how a centralised political authority, the Caliphate, provided the authority for one version of the Qu'ran, but we will never know what the other variants were, and this exhibition omits discussion of this fact. When the Qu'ran is described, the aesthetics of calligraphy and display are clarified, but content is never broached. There are no heretical Islamic texts on display and the failure to analyse the Qu'ran on the same terms as the Bible is clearly demonstrated.

The exhibition shows that some texts are more sacred than others, as the interfaith agenda overrides the central message of the research.

Muslim Fundamentalists and Intelligent Design

Although we often hear of Christian arguments against Darwinism, we are less informed about Muslim reactions to evolutionary theories: here is an interesting debate where a Muslim scholar defends intelligent design.

Note how creationist theories, constructed for Christian literal fundamentalists, are adapted by Muslim creationists in Turkey, for different audiences.

My answer is yes, on two different levels. First, a believer can reasonably accept a guided evolution, a process determined and directed by God. I think this is compatible with Islam or Christianity.

Second, one can believe even in a purely Darwinian (unguided, driven by chance and natural law) evolution and still can be a Muslim or Christian. However this is a very shaky and problematic position. Because the Qur'an -- and the Bible, for that matter -- tells us that the existence of God is evident in what He has created. There are many verses in the Quran telling about God's signs in nature; in animals, plants or the human body. But Darwinism says, "Well, no, there are no such signs, because all of this is created by the blind forces of nature."

In other words accepting Darwinism does not force you to deny God, but forces you to accept that there is no rational evidence from nature to believe in God. It does not make you necessarily an atheist, but it portrays atheism as a perfectly rational, reasonable position. That's why the arch-atheist Richard Dawkins thanks Darwin because "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

It is clear that some Islamic scholars adopt Christian arguments on intelligent deisgn versus Darwinism, as an adjunct to their own fundamentalism. Without further knowledge of Islam's reception of Darwinism, it is not clear if this transmission of knowledge is recent or reflects an older relationship between Christian and Islamic fundamentalism.